Vaguard
by teroinreadsteroinwrites
Summary: Sequel to Heart Ache and Spark Break
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Transofmers. All copyrights and trademarks go to their respective owners. Now no more wasting time Brent's back bitches.

* * *

As I drove through the desert my eyes focused in on the silver band and its shiny blue stones. They sparkled in the light. I smiled at it, growing giddy as drove, feeling how close I was.

On the seat beside me, Jazzy sat recharging in his altmode, an iPhone 6+. I nudged him, waking him up.

"What?" he mumbled. Jazzy was not the easiest bot to pull out recharge, nor was he the nicest once you finally did.

I didn't let his attitude faze me, however. "We're close."

He perked up, transforming and crawling up on the dash. "How close?"

"Real close."

My heart was beating and my spark thrumming with an excitement.

It had been six months of Jazzy and myself on our own. Six months of nonstop moves. Six months of shitty part time jobs. Six months of my Cybertronian half and my human half shifting and melding.

Whereas before I was more of a patchwork being with certain sections of my body were metal while others were flesh, now I was more cohesive. According to the last scan I had done on me. My bones were now entirely covered in cybertanium, my organs had adapted to the newer part of my Cybertronian physiology, and my blood was now infused with energon. While it was cool and convenient on one hand, it had not been easy. The constant change was painful and while it had let up recently, it had not yet finished. Six months was about to end thanks to one message.

 _I was standing at the kitchen counter in my new shithole apartment, jamming a bowl of cheerios in my mouth, before I had to leave for work, when a high pitched frequency run in my commlink causing me to wince._

" _Son of a bitch!" I swore, trying to dial it back. Jazzy seemed to be a similar state, trying to regulate his systems, where he was sitting on the counter. The ringing finally ceased and a voice that I was afraid that I would never hear again came over it._

" _Calling all autobots_

 _Calling all autobots"_

" _Jazzy!" I squealed._

 _The small bot looked up at me blue eyes wide with shock, relief and excitement._

" _Text, Laura. Tell her that I appreciate all that she's done for me, but my great aunt Bertha died, and I have to go to the funeral and in all honestly am never coming back._

 _I quickly threw what little I had unpacked back into my bag, and picked up Jazzy on the way. "We're going on a road trip, bud," I said, shutting and locking the door behind me._

For as excited as I was, I was also terrified. Who the fuck was left? We were being hunted and with success on the part of our hunters. Our numbers were dwindling.

I nearly jumped for joy at the sight of Optimus sitting there in his altmode. Hound was there, which excited me. He had arrived while we were still in N.E.S.T. purgatory. When we didn't know if it was going to continue or if we were going to be disbanded.

There was a green bot that I had never met before, but I identified as Crosshairs. Same went for Drift.

Nothing compared however to finally seeing that '67 Camaro that I loved so much, sitting there. Bee activated his holoform. I stopped the car, snatched Jazzy up and sprinted over to him. He met me half way, picking me up and spinning me around. In the process, I had accidently buried Jazzy in the back of Bee's jacket. Oops.

"Who is that?"

"Is anyone going to say anything about the whole human thing going on here?" someone else asked.

"I fucking missed you," I said, pressing my lips to his.

There were retching sounds. When Bee and I broke apart, I realized that if Jazzy would've actually required oxygen he would've been dead.

"Sorry, bud."

I let him go, and released Bee. "Go ahead and transform," I told him.

He smirked at me, holo fizzing out. The first whirl of his transformation caused my grin to widen. He walked over to the others and then put a digit down for Jazzy to climb on. Then he picked me up, setting me on his shoulder.

"Again. Who the hell is she?"

"Bee's femme." I smiled down at Ravage, who strode out from behind the green one. The second she was visible, Jazzy was clambering over to her, climbing up on to her back.

" _I see how it is._ "

I chuckled, rubbing Bee's face plates. "You're still his favorite," I assured him.

"Brent and Bee," she greeted. "Primus, I'm glad to see you two are alright.

"Back at ya Rav."

"Human," green repeated.

"Cool it Samuel L. Jackson. There aren't any mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane."

As soon as the last word left my mouth, Optimus opened his doors and three people got out.

"Or maybe there are," I backtracked.

As soon as the three were clear, Optimus transformed, and wasted no time getting down to business.

"Humans have asked us to play by their rules. Well, the rules have just changed."

Of course the happy reunion couldn't last.

"Human beings, a bunch of back stabbing weasels," Hound said, shedding the various weapons he war.

"Hound, find your inner compass. Loyalty is but a flower in the winds of temptation."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"It's a haiku."

"Cute the crap, before I shove a grenade sown your throat." Hound pulled a grenade and reached for Drift only to have a sword at his throat.

"Try it. You'll be dead."

"Oh pull it. Please do it."

"Looks like a samurai and talks like a fortune cookie. I can't help, but find this a tad bit racist," I said.

" _You know what? It'll save us so much time_ ," Bee played throwing his hands up.

I glared at him holding on. "I know it's been a while since I've been up here, but can you please refrain from dropping me?"

He at least was smart enough to look apologetic.

"Well raise your hand if you're thoroughly disenchanted with our little Earth vacation."

' _I'm disenchanted with that fucking trench coat,_ " I thought.

"So who's the stowaways?" Crosshairs asked, pulling a gun on the three full blown humans. Hound joined him.

"Reminds me of when I first me Hide," I said, fondly.

"Whoa. What's with the guns?"

"Both of you, stop. They risked their lives for mine. We owe them."

I easily navigated my way down Bee, landing on the ground with a thud. I walked over to the three.

"I'm Brent," I introduced myself, putting a hand out to shake. "I've been involved in all this craziness since the fucking beginning. Please ignore the bots, when they're like this. They're partially paranoid, partially trying to show off their weapons."

"Cade," the oldest said, tentatively shaking my hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Unlike you insparked imbeciles, Brent is trying to make them feel more at ease, by displaying some type of civil behavior."

"Listen, here decepticon-"

"She is not a con," I snapped.

I turned back to the crew. "This is my daughter Tessa," he introduced the girl. "And that's Lucky Charms," he jerked his thumb back towards the guy.

"His name is Shane," Tessa corrected, glaring at her father. "And he's my boyfriend."

"Now I get it. I guess I better not make a magically delicious joke then."

"Please don't," they chorused.

"Well, clearly you fucked up somewhere along the line, so since you're here, you might as well get a proper introduction to the crew."

"That," I said starting with Ravage, "Is Ravage. The little one climbing her face plates is Jazzy. Jazzy is mine and Bee's." I pointed up at Bee. "This is Bumblebee, my fiancé." I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers, so that the ring sparkled. "Hound, he liked things that go boom, Drift, Crosshairs, and you already know Prime. Any questions so far?"

"You're engaged to a giant alien robot?"

"Problem with that, Lucky Charms?" I asked, my voice threatening.

"None. None at all," he said, taking a step backwards.

"Good," I walked back to Bee, leaning against his ped.

"I- Do you think we could set up camp or something. Find a place to sit, before we start sharing intel or whatever? This is a lot to take in.

"I second that," I chimed.

We set up a camp for the night, all of us settling around a fire.

We were broken off into our own little groups for the most part. Drift sat quietly, sharpening his blades. I was sitting front of Bee, Jazzy on my lap. Ravage was to my right. Hound and Crosshairs were arguing about something and based on the glances that kept coming my way, I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

Bee's scanners were on me. He and Ravage were discussing my current situation over the comm. I had turned it off and tuned it out.

"Brent, this must've been very hard to endure," Ravage noted.

"Yeah, I can't say that it's been fun, no."

"According to my scans, it's almost complete a few more weeks and it'll be over."

"Thank fuck."

"And you went through this on your own?"

I nodded. "We had to split some months ago."

Bee winced. I sighed. I knew he blamed himself, but there was nothing that we could do. We'd gotten found and our best solution was to split. "I'm sure the strain on the bond didn't help the healing process either."

"So there are no signs of any others?" Prime asked.

I shook my head no. "None that I have come across. Of course that doesn't mean that the others haven't been contacted, but I wasn't gonna risk them to ask."

"Nada."

"They're picking us off one by one."

"We're the pathetic dirty five and you make six."

The talk of our numbers was depressing, so I tuned into Cade, Tessa and Shane's conversation.

"So that's our best case scenario, autobot witness protection?"

"Hey Speed Racer, you're free to leave at any time."

"Well, for the record, Super Dad, I'm not hiding with you. I'm hiding with that big guy." He pointed at Optimus.

I snorted. "Optimus is the best of us, is essentially everyway unless you count the opposite of everything good, because then we totally have him beat. However, I should let you know that he died once, and then I had to haul my ass through Egypt for some fucking pixie dust to bring his ass back to life and died in the process, so I would just take that into consideration."

"You died?"

"What you mean like Nikki Sixx clinically dead for two minutes-"

"How long was I dead for? Bee?"

He was too busy arguing with Drift.

"Sensei, with your fate unknown, Bumblebee has held command."

I think held command was over stating it. All Bee did was tell everyone to fucking scatter.

"Despite his complete and utter lack of anything resembling warrior discipline."

I could feel Bee getting pissed off, but in all honesty, I was kind of amused. It was fun to watch Bee get riled up.

"He is like a child."

" _This child is about to kick your ass._ " Bee got up and stomped over to Drift.

"Get 'im, Bug!" I cheered, laughing.

"He brings us shame."

Bee stomped on Drift's sword, knocking it out of the way.

"Cage fight," Hound called.

"My money's on Drift," Crosshairs called.

"Same," Hound agreed.

"I got the bug," Ravage chimed.

I looked at her surprised. Ravage wasn't exactly one to take part in our stupid bets, especially on the side of the younger of the two,

Bumblebee started off strong, but eventually Drift got the better of him.

"What's the matter with them?" Tessa asked.

"A bit of stir crazy, bit of helplessness, a lot of grief and frustration," I responded.

"Am I the lone sage who sees through this puppy dog eyes act? It is beneath you."

"Yes. I've been waiting for them all to dispatch each other, so that I could take charge with no trouble at all."

I looked at Crosshairs like he'd lost his fucking mind. "I'm sorry who in the fuck do you think is gonna follow you?"

"No one. Just me reporting to me."

"Sure looks like you've been missed," Cade said to Optimus.

I shrugged. "They don't really respect authority well," I explained.

" _Because you do?_ " Bee teased.

"Okay. We don't respect authority well, myself included."

"Autobots, lock down is hunting us and humans are helping," Optimus stated.

"Well, I don't know what the fuck Lockdown wants, but I would like to note that Chicago was a cluster fuck, and that if I wasn't there and didn't understand that it was human bull shit that caused it to happen, I would also be a pissed off human. Not as pissed off as the others, because ultimately everything had to happen to prevent Megatron and Sentinel from taking over the planet, but still a lot of people died."

"You talk like you're one of us," Crosshairs chided.

"Listen I may not be an "autobot," but I am family, you ignorant fuck, and unlike you, who apparently wants to watch the world fucking burn, which I've seen already, it's not pretty, I want everyone to get their shit together. Now I remember a time, where we could all pick at each other and not kill each other. Can we try that? Chill on the murderous rage, and listen to what the fuck Optimus is trying to say."

"As I was saying we need to know why."

"Listen, I don't know about why, but I have an idea about who."

Cade hooked up some tech that he had stolen from the people hunting us and Drift projected it onto a rock face. The images were disgusting and horrifying.

"Look what happens here," Cade focused in on one scene.

"Oh that's Leadfoot," Hound said sadly.

I shook my head. "Even that asshole didn't deserve that."

"Savages." He put his helmet over his heart in a tribute.

"They rip them apart and later this this truck comes to haul them off, KSI, Kinetic Solutions. Defense Aerospace, government contracts. They designed this drone."

"So these government guy just hunt you down and then pass you off to this KSI?"

"The company's headquarters' in Chicago," Cade told us.

I groaned. "Of fucking course it is."

"That's where they could have been taken."

"No way to get inside without a battle."

"That's where you're wrong, Hound." I smirked and then looked at Tessa, Cade and Shane. Jazzy chirped from my shoulder.

"What are we just supposed to be partners now?" Tessa asked.

"Alright. Alright. I think I've gotten this speech down, I've given it so many times."

I got up to talk face to face with Tessa. "In every situation, there are choices that we have to make. When I was in high school, I decided to get in a car. When we ended up in Egypt I decided that I was willing to die so that others could live. And when I was in Chicago, I decided that I was going to die standing rather than live on my knees. Now you have a choice. Tessa, you can quit being a little cry baby bitch, get your shit together and help us, or or and this is a big or, you can continue to wallow in yourself pity, hinder us all, jeopardizing not only us, but yourself and end up either dead or in jail for the rest of your obnoxious existence. If I were you, I'd pick getting my shit together."

I stepped back and returned to my spot.

"Autobots, I have sworn to never kill humans."

"Big mistake-"

"But, when I find out, who's behind this he's going to die."

I felt a sick sense of satisfaction creep up my spine. Vengeance was going to be sweet.

We agreed to recharge in the desert that night with the agreement that after a nice recharge we would all head out in the morning. Be had transformed, and now I was sitting in his lap in the back seat, while Jazzy slept in the passenger's seat. My head was resting on his shoulder, one arm wrapped around his neck, where it connected with the other. Bee's arms were wrapped around my waist, fingers tapping against my hip. We sat there in silence for a while, before I broke it.

"So I have a question."

" **: . It** ' **s bad. It's bad. Really bad** ," he commed.

"You could've at least let me ask," I teased.

" **: . You worry too much about me.** "

"You need to be worried about. You like to go and do dumb shit."

He chose not to argue with me, instead asking me how I was feeling.

"Sometimes bad. Sometimes good. Sometimes great. It just depends on the day."

" **: . So nothing's changed?** "

I shook my head.

He cycled his vents.

"Now who worries too much?"

" **:.I'll always worry about you.** " His hold on me tightened ever so slightly.

"Holy hell, I missed you," I mumbled.

He responded by kissing my temple.


	2. Chapter 2

When we got to Chicago we found an abandoned church to hide out in. It was massive and had a garage door, so it was the perfect hideout for three full sized bots.

There was some left over furniture and boxes of clothes, blankets and canned foods that must've been donated to the church for something.

That was a lucky break. We still needed supplies, but at least now it wasn't severe.

A not so lucky break was the fact that my body decided now was as good a time as any to surge in the fusion process, so I was in a lot of pain, and by a lot of pain, I mean I had been laying on of the couches, writhing in agony with only a few moments of lucidity throughout the day. According to Bee and Ravage, the organs in my chest were the ones currently undergoing the change. Of course I already knew that because of the searing pain. It was like having molted metal poured onto your organs.

Bee had transformed down. Currently in his holo, he was hovering, attempting to wipe away the sweat which was pouring off of me. Jazzy was sitting beside my head. Optimus and Hound were concerned, but also focused on their strategy for getting into KSI.

Cade had determined that Shane and Tessa were in charge of stealing food and the essentials. If I had not been in a state of living hell. I would have gone with. No need to steal food, when you've stolen a credit card. By the time the plan was made though, the pain was starting to subside. Not enough for me to do anything other than lay there, but enough for me to think clearly.

"Bee," I croaked out.

He kneeled beside me. "Take them," I told him. "And Rav, go with."

Ravage stood up immediately, and transformed into Suzuki Hayabusa. Her holoform appeared on top.

Bee went to protest.

I looked to Ravage for help.

"She's stabling out. Her pain is subsiding. She will be fine until we return," she said.

Bee was not convinced.

She rolled her eyes.

"You're hovering is not helping. Let's go. We can find her some medication to help deal with the pain," she said.

Bee was still reluctant. "Get out of here," I told him, attempting to smile. It came out as a grimace. I still felt like I was dying, but it was a different death now, a slow methodical one.

They left and were shortly followed by Cade and Optimus who needed to get a couple of ids to get us into KSI.

"How you doin, Lil Lady?" Hound asked.

I rolled my head over to look at him. "Like I swallowed a grenade."

He chuckled. "When I was with the Wreckers in the early days of the war…"

Once Hound got started there was no stopping his war stories. He was still going, when the others finally returned hours later. By that point, I was sitting up. No longer was I feeling the pain of the fusion, just the after effects. I was sore as all hell, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't deal with. I was gross, but functioning.

Optimus and Cade returned first. Optimus seemed relieved to see me somewhat back to normal. Cade was for sure.

"What the hell's going on with you?" he asked me.

"Some fucking bull shit," I replied, not bothering to elaborate. "Don't die," I advised.

Bee, Shane and Tessa were next, dumping the contents of their haul on the table. I got up and pursued through it.

I lifted a t shirt. "Next time heart attack or not, I'm going. You two suck."

"Yeah," Cade agreed. "Protein powder, candles and mouthwash. Glad we got that."

"Hey, I like to be fresh, when I'm making out with your daughter."

I laughed, which was not the best thing to do considering the chest pain. Cade took the mouthwash and hurled it across the room. "Yeah that's not happening ever."

"Ever?"

Bee popped his trunk. Just as he did so, Ravage showed back up.

"Where the hell did you go?" I asked her.

She placed a bottle of pills in my hand. "You stole me morphine?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Sweet!"

"Whoa. Isn't that dangerous?" Cade asked.

I snorted. "I couldn't overdose if I tried. I know. I tried."

As soon as anything threatened the balance of my organic half the Cybertronian half immediately kicked in to correct it and protect me. I read the dosage instructions and then stashed them for later use. Aleve would do for now. Which luckily was in the bags the Ravage was pulling from Bee's trunk.

"When the hell did you get that?" Shane asked.

"While you two were blundering through the store like idiots, I took the most effective path to gather and purchase the proper supplies," she sneered.

"With what?"

She lifted a credit card.

Both Tessa and Shane groaned in frustration, while I popped my Aleve and started on a baby wipe bath.

I dug through my bag of stuff and changed. When I returned, Tessa and Shane were now cuddling on the couch, while Optimus and Cade were giving us one last run down of the plan.

"Chicago KSI headquarters is like a fortress. I'm gonna find a way into their top secret military wing. Find something to blackmail this company and the government. We're gonna get our freedom back. A couple times a day these guys are moving in vehicle shipments to KSI for something called scanning. Major security all over, so our best shot at getting in is a back classified research entrance. I'm gonna drive in with Bee tomorrow morning. Crosshairs, you're going to drop Brent off at the front gate."

I nodded. "Id?" I asked.

Cade slid it over to me. "Bee says you got this."

The woman on the id looking nothing like me, but that was okay. I could work with it.

As it turned out a key factor of my being technoorganic is that my body would change to develop. Like evolution, but instead of a beak or extended canines over hundreds of years of breeding, it usually took about two months for my body to dreaded some new part or piece in reaction to whatever my needs were. I hadn't noticed it early on, because everything was okay, but when we had to run and we started living on the road my body change to accommodate the lifestyle more.

Tessa and Shane weren't paying attention instead focused on each other. The pair shared a kiss and Cade cleared his throat. "Excuse me. There's no smooching in front of me."

"You're so square. Who even says smooching?"

Optimus crossed his arms over his chassis.

Cade shook his head. "I tell you, no respect. It's just impossible sometimes."

"Yeah, I went through that with Bumblebee."

"Not surprising," I chimed.

"No wonder you too get along so well," Ravage chimed.

"You've developed quite the sense of humor since I saw you last. I like it."

"Just wait until you have to go through it with Jazzy," Optimus said.

"I've got time," I told him.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't own Transofmers. All copyrights and trademarks go to their respective owners.

* * *

"I'm just saying you look like an idiot," I said to Crosshairs.

"I really do not like you."

"Really? I never would have guessed. Listen lots of people don't like me. My own parents never liked me. I don't care if you like me."

"Whatever. Just get out."

"Thanks for the ride, Sam," I said getting out in front of KSI. I swiped my id and headed into the building.

":. Ready , bud?" I asked Jazzy.

":. Yep."

Immediately, he got to work on hacking into their server.

' _Now if I was a super high tech company, where would I hide my outdated files?_ ' I wondered.

I saw a guy with an empty mail cart and followed him figuring that it was a good a start as any. He got on an elevator. We went down to the second sub-basement. There was the mail room and a sign that read archives.

I smirked. "Bingo."

Of course it was locked. I scanned my badge, but was denied apparently Karen Shelley didn't have the permissions to get in there.

":. I need you to make me disappear bud."

":. Cameras are down."

I picked the lock with my blades and entered, quickly shutting the door behind me. My moment of smugness was disrupted by annoyance.

":. Wanna tell me why you're pissed off?" I commed.

":. Stinger, like Bumblebee, but better in every way," he sneered. " ! Fragging slag!"

":. Still not making sense, Bug."

":. They're trying to make us," he explained.

":. Like their own versions?"

":. Like their own fragging, ridiculous, stupid, bull shit, slag versions of us."

":. Did you cause a scene?"

":. No."

I rolled my eyes. ":. Yeah. I'm gonna call bullshit on that one. Just be careful. Lucky Charms was shaking like leaf this morning. You draw attention to him and we're fucked."

I continued digging. I pulled out a set of records from one of the cabinets. It had the most security, so I figured that it was probably the most important. I filed through it.

":. Guys," I commed everyone. ":. KSI is partnered with Cemetery Wind. They took the NEST funding and transferred it over to them after we were disbanded. They're the ones hunting us. I flipped through it. In exchange for help strengthening the nation's defense against any future alien attacks, KSI was granted all of the remains of any defeated decepticons including those from the attack on Chicago."

":. Then why are they hunting us?"

":. Maybe they've gone rogue," I pondered.

The door opened and I immediately spun around.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in there?" a guy asked.

"I'm Karen," I said. "Um… do you work in the archives? I'm so lost here. I'm from accounting. My computer's down for maintenance and I can't seem to find the numbers from our acquisition of Beats by Dre."

"While it's certainly not in there," the guy said, snatching the file out of my hand and moving to shove it back in the cabinet.

"Sorry dude," I muttered, slamming his face into the metal, knocking him out cold. I took the file and shoved it under my shirt, before letting out scream and running to the door.

The guy from the mail room came running, stopping, when he saw man on the ground.

"He fell and hit his head," I lied, trying to act panicked.

"Go call first aid," he said, kneeling next to the guy.

Once I was in the elevator, I was hit hard with Bee's anger and sadness.

":. Bug?"

":. They're melting, Jazz."

":. Brent, get Cade," Optimus barked.

The elevator door opened and a team of security guards walked in. "Don't try to resist," one said.

"We've got your friend," the other snapped.

I slumped defeated.

They each grabbed an arm and hit the button, taking us up to one of the conference rooms, where I saw Cade sitting with none other the owner of KSI and some old guy that I had never seen before.

They tossed me in the chair next to him. Cade was pleading for some type of representation. "-protect my family. Not from your company, from the government."

"Mr. Yeager, who do you think I work for?" the older man asked.

"So, you're the one in charge of Cemetery Wind?" I asked.

"Ms. Shelley," he said. "Or should I call you Ms. DeMarco? Rather impressive disguise you got there," he said.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," I replied, deactivating my holo projector, so that I looked like myself again."

"I get it. You're trying to protect your family, and you are trying to avenge those things, who you seem to think are your family. That's admirable. I'm trying to defend the nation from the alien war. We've had a taste of what that looks like and we are not going to tolerate another."

"By getting rid of your strongest asset? Because that makes a ton of sense."

He ignored me. "There is a version of this conversation, where you get to go back to your barn, your daughter gets to graduate with honors and life as you know it will go on, and you" he turned to me. "Get to live, even if it's in a correctional facility for the rest of your life. Neither of you have any idea of what you're involved with here."

I didn't know what I was involved with? Me? I, who had been there through everything that had happened on Earth since Optimus and the others showed up, was clueless? That was fucking rich.

"What's the other version of this conversation, the one where you send in your hired help to murder my little girl? Or are you gonna man up and do it yourself?"

"What's your preference? I'm gonna ask you this once. Where is Optimus Prime?"

There was a large crashing noise, gun fire and alarms started going off.

"He's right fucking here," I said, shoving the table back into the guy, pinning him between it and the wall. I transformed my arm and fired into the glass behind us. Drift was bringing Bee up. "And so is our ride."

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

I transformed it back into my servo and shoved Cade into Bee's outstretched arm, before jumping on to him and clinging to his plating.

"What the hell?" Cade screamed.

"I'll explain later."

Once we were outside, Bee dropped down transforming with both Cade and I inside. He picked up Shane and Tessa and we fled.

"What the hell is this?" Shane yelled freaking out.

"You're a robot?" Tessa asked.

"Short version. I tried to help save Optimus. I died. Primus, their goddess, revived me as a techno-organic."

"What does that mean?"

"Means she's half human, Tess," Cade explained, staring at me.

I shoved his face. "Still the same bitch that I was before, quit fucking staring."

"Bug, where's OP?"

" _Enroute._ "

I nodded, taking a deep breath to bring me down. The others caught up to us and I felt a lot better.

That was until I noticed explosions up ahead. I groaned.

"Dad?!" Tessa yelled, worried.

"Why the fuck can't we get away clean just once?" I asked no one in particular.

"That's it! That's- Those are their prototypes, Stinger and Galvatron."

"Really, Cade? I never would've guessed," I snipped. "Jazzy, do not leave my pocket," I warned him.

Their knockoff stood and aimed at us, before firing missiles.

" _Hold on to your butts,_ " Bee played.

If I wasn't so caught up in thinking about how I hadn't missed this part of the gig, I would've rolled my eyes. Every one spun around and started high tailing it the other way. Naturally, we were pursued. Stinger was right behind us. I could feel Bee's anger rising.

"We gotta haul ass, Bee! Come on!"

"Listen, this is not the first time we've been through this shit. Have some faith dude. They're probably feeding it commands. Jazzy, can you intercept or block their signal."

"I can try."

"That's all I ask, Baby Bot."

I looked back over my shoulder and saw them prepared to fire more missiles. "I lied. I gotta ask that you do it faster."

"I'm in from earlier, but I can't interfere. I can only here."

"Well patch it through. If we know their game plan, we know how to counter."

The knockoffs fired another round of rockets. Jazzy played the audio.

" _Misfire! Misfire! Misfire! Misfire!_ "

" _System failure, Galvatron just fired four rockets._ "

"Whoa! They're shooting at us!"

' _They're not in control of that fucking thing_ ,' I realized. This was bad. If they weren't in control of Galvatron then who the hell was?

All the bots avoided the rockets. The rockets did not avoid he lumber truck ahead of us. It spun, blocking the road, keeping the bots from simply driving through. I buttoned the pocket that Jazzy was in, while Cade and Shane just repeatedly screamed 'whoa' as if that was really going to change the outcome of anything.

Optimus transformed and jumped over it. Bee used the wreckage as a spring board during his transformation, throwing Cade, Tessa, Shane and me to Optimus.

Now I had been through this before yes. That being said it was still terrifying, and I would've been happy to never ever have repeated the experience it again. So yes, I screamed like a bitch.

Optimus transformed down with us inside.

"I fucking hate that."

Shane stuck his head out the window to look behind us.

"If you want to keep that head on your shoulders, then you better get it the fuck inside," I barked.

Optimus transformed throwing us out again. While Cade, Shane and I landed to the side of the road in the grass. Tessa rolled behind Optimus, who engage Galvatron.

Through Jazzy, Joyce was demanding that they make Galvatron fight. Shane was helping people out of the Jeep that had just gotten fucked up, and Cade was focused on Tessa. She managed to move, however as soon as she hit the grass, Optimus was thrown her way.

I shook my head feeling really bad for everyone if I was ever this useless. I ran over to her. Optimus had the advantage, at least for a moment. He ran his sword through the human made mech's chest. Galvatron managed to use that closeness to his benefit, getting a hold of prime and slamming him to the ground.

When Optimus hit the ground debris flew everywhere including at Tessa and myself. I shoved her into the open car door so that she wouldn't get hit the debris coming at us. Unfortunately for me that motion put me right in the cross fire. It lodged itself in my neck, which sucked. It totally sucked. It hurt like hell and caused me to yell in agony. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the red that was dripping from my neck onto Tessa's leg. The world began to spin and I was from hunching over to falling on top of the panicked girl.

"Brent? Brent!" she screamed.

I wanted to say something. That I would be fine, that she needed to shut the hell up and not draw attention to us, but I couldn't do anything other than groan at the wave of vertigo and the pain of the shrapnel rubbing against the metal vertebrae in my neck. I wanted to pull it out, but it's very hard to do, when you've fainted.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So some of you (if you've read all the prequels) probably have realized that they all end at four. That was never intentional. It just worked out that way. Well not this one. This ridiculously long fucking movie translates into six chapters, and that's despite the fact that for this fic and Brent's involvement doesn't even start until forty five minutes in. Ridiculous.


	4. Chapter 4

I watched Tessa was the weird alien in the cage that she was currently hiding on in order to avoid being detected wrapped its long tongue around her leg. At least it wasn't down her throat, like Sammy. I was a tad bit pissed at Tessa. One one hand I understood the need to save one's own life. On the other hand leaving me to probably die in the back of a car that was being eaten by a garbage disposal from hell was a bit shitty.

She fell and the thing began to pull her towards its mouth.

I kind of wanted to let it eat her. I'm not going to lie, but I didn't, instead, dropping from my hiding spot, and blasting the dumb thing.

"Brent!"

"Thanks for the assist back there with the fucking garbage disposal," I said, pulling her up off the ground. "Give me your jacket.

"What happened to your shirt?" she asked.

After jumping out of the car I realized the neck of my shirt was covered in blood. Needless to say the shirt had to go, and admittedly, I threw up once right after getting it off. Now I was my sports bra, which I was not exactly pleased with, but at least I wasn't naked and it wasn't bloody.

"Don't ask," I said, shaking my head. "How about instead of questioning my lack of clothing, you thank me for saving your pathetic ass, despite the fact that you left me to be turned into baby food.

"How are you alive?"

I rolled my eyes, and lifted my head exposing my throat. There was a band of chrome colored metal, where I had been struck, the nano bots in my system coming together to repair the damage and create a seal. The metal would stay there was long as needed. Once everything was fix the nanobots would re enter my bloodstream until they were needed next.

"Half robot, now come one. I can hear your father and your boyfriend lurking around here."

"Tessa!"

"Tess!"

"See? Right on que."

We ran towards their voices. Tessa ran straight into Shane's arms, leaving her old man hanging.

I rolled my eyes, and jerked my thumb towards Shane. "He bitch out?"

"Oh he bitched out alright."

"I figured."

"How are you upright?"

"Robo healing my friend. I will explain it more in depth, when we are not on the bad guy's ship. My scans are telling me that we're near an anchor port. If we can get out, we can crawl to whatever the fuck this hell ship is anchored to."

"You sure?"

"How many times I gotta say this? This is not my first rodeo. Plus, Bee's been training me. Now let's move it people, before this thing flies out of here or the government decides to bring the rain."

I was right, and soon enough, we were outside, staring at the anchors. Tessa of course was bitching out, talking about how she couldn't do it and blah blah blah. She was like Leo, but worse. Leo was at least somewhat useful.

"Either you go or I throw you off of this fucking ship and you go splat on the pavement," I threatened.

"Whoa, Brent-"

"NO!" I barked. "No more fucking Mr. Nice Guy. I've had it up to here with your bullshit. I get that being thrown into this is fucking crazy, and it's scary as hell. I know. I was in your position once. But being scared is a hell of a lot better than being dead, so get your ass in gear and fucking go!"

"Shane, Tess, go first. Cade you and I can shoot, so we're taking up the rear. Jazzy, watch my six, and give me the heads up."

The little bot climbed out of my pocket and transformed, wedging himself between my back and my bra,

It was a good thing that I was angry. The angrier I got, the less I could focus on other things, like the being hundreds of feet above the ground on thin wires. Tessa and Shane's fear and Cade's constant encouragement. It kept me from being as afraid as I should've been in that moment.

It was enough however to make me flip off the jets that kept flying past nearly knocking us off of the cables. Tessa nearly fell and threw a tantrum. Apparently Cade was in a similar state as me, because rather than continue his gentle encouragement, it tried to pull parental authority on her. I would've gone for the you're going to die strategy, but to each their own.

"Ma!" Jazzy cried.

I looked over my shoulder. My optic focusing on the hyena type bots at the anchor port.

Cade saw them too.

"We need to go this way? Not back.

"Come one talk to her Romeo, now," Cade barked.

"Come on for God's sake."

"Do not start with me," she snapped at him.

If the hyenas hadn't just hopped on the cables, I would've found some enjoyment in their squabbling.

"Oh my God! What is that?"

"Alright Tessa, don't look back."

"Well don't say that to me. Now I wanna turn around."

"It's nothing major sweetie."

"Nothing at all," I agreed, readying my blaster.

"Well that means it's totally major!"

"I'm gonna have to point this gun in your direction-"

"Cade, just shoot," I said, firing off my own shot at one of the creatures. It dodged, jumping on to another cable.

"I had to bust my ass to get up on that space ship get down now." Tessa ducked, and Cade shot. He hit the one and I hit the other, causing them to stumble. Repeatedly firing at them they eventually lost their balance, and fell. The others that were still at the port began to chew the cables.

I wasn't good enough of a shot to hit them from the distance we were at. The cables began to droop as they were frayed and split.

Luckily the Calvary arrived, sparing us. Ravage pounced on one from behind, while Bee took out two. However, one managed to finish the job and separate our lines.

"HOLD ON!" I screeched, grabbing on for dear life. Bee hopped on, grabbing the end of the cable. We slammed into the building hard. Tessa, Shane and Cade lost their grips, but Bee caught them. Jazzy managed to maneuver himself so that he could shoot the glass out of the building where I was heading. I made an effort to move, so that a majority of the impact was on the parts of my body hat were entirely inorganic. Jazzy and I rolled across the office floor. He was dinged up and I got a few more bruises and some rug burn to add to my collection of injuries.

We got up and ran to the window. Bee was hanging there with the others.

"Bumblebee! Bumblebee! Friendly! Enemy ships are coming in hot."

"I have a bad feeling about this," I muttered, looking at Crosshairs.

"Get on! Get on!"

Bee set the others on the small craft and then gestured for me to come down. I grabbed Jazzy and dropped down on to Bee, who then set me onboard with the others.

I could see Lockdown's goons coming at us. Bee hopped on and we took off, with Crosshairs 'punching it.'

Tessa had calmed down considerably, which was a plus. I felt terrible for the people of Chicago. No doubt we were bringing back memories that they would've much rather forgotten. Plus we were doing what we did best and unintentionally destroying half of a city.

"How many do we got?"

"Three," Cade answered.

"I'm giving it the juice."

Crosshairs flew us low right over the river. "Come on Bee! Take them out!"

"Bug, now would be the time to get creative," I added.

Bee fired a cable out of his forearm hooking a boat with it, swinging it up into Lockdown's cronies.

"Good move, Bee."

"That was different," I commended.

"This one's for you a-holes." Crosshairs fired the rockets into the bridge causing it to collapse on our pursuers.

We went up and tried to shake them with some hair pin turns around skyscrapers, but it wasn't cutting it.

"If, you're gonna do something you better do it."

"I'm sick of this crap. You fly. I'll shoot." Crosshairs threw Bee towards the cockpit.

My eyes widened. "This is a bad idea!" I exclaimed.

"What? How?"

"Bee's a shit pilot.

" _Sit down and shut up,"_ Bee played.

"Fuck you. If you crash like you did last time I'm fucked. I don't think I can take anymore heavy damage without actually needing a hospital." My nanobots were currently stretched to their limit based on my self scans.

"You better let me fire this big ass gun, so that we can go faster.

"Listen up crash course. Chaser guns punch forward to fire slide back to reload.

"What?"

"Punch hold slide repeat. Punch hold slide repeat."

"Wait, what're you talking about?"

"I don't really know what he means?"

"Good luck."

"Don't let Bee fly this thing!"

"Where are you going?"

"To lay some heat," Crosshairs answered.

"God damn it!" I swore. "Bee, I swear-"

" _No one likes a… back seat driver…_ "

"No one likes crashing either, fuck head."

Cade and Shane worked on taking out the idiots behind getting excited, when they began to have success. I was starting to feel the pain of my injuries and was evaluating them.

Bee flew us into the lower level of a double decker highway into oncoming traffic.

Cade and Shane managed to shoot down the bots behind us, but the debris from the wreckage came flying us, and Bee only had one way to go, up through the fucking road.

"Uh oh."

"You idiot!" I yelled, holding on until we finally came to a stop.

"That was insane."

"Don't sound excited," I snipped. "That was stupid, insanely stupid." I rubbed at my sore neck, while I crawled out of the wreckage. "This is why you should never ever fly."

Bee rolled his optic at me. " _It was fine…_ "

"Fine? This was not fine. This was somehow worse than last time. Last time was bad."

Over head we saw Lockdown's ship. A section of it broke off, before the rest of it took off into space.

" **and the other's escaped**."

Bee transformed down.

"That was Prime and the others," I told the other three. "Now we have to get the fuck out of here."


	5. Chapter 5

I was in the back with Tessa. The further away that we had gotten from Chicago, the more I started to settle down. With my new sense of calm, the adrenaline and whatever the fuck else that had been pumping through my system lessened, everything balancing out to normal, and with that came the pain.

I was black and blue all over and covered in tiny cuts that I hadn't noticed before. Now, I felt everyone. I felt the pain in my neck from having my head whipped all over the place and the familiar burning sensation of the nanobots trying to take care of the wound on my neck as well as my internal organs from the feel of it. My joints were sore, having taking a ridiculous amount of force upon impact after impact. Worst was the pain of my body adapting. The metal and flesh moving in a complicated dance in order for whatever it determined I needed to come too.

It felt as if I was on fire from the inside out. I don't know where the hell we were heading. Obviously it was going to be in the middle of nowhere, where Prime and the others could land a fucking space ship without being too conspicuous.

When we finally met up with the others, Bee practically threw the others out, before, activating his holoform.

He went to pick me up, but I managed to get out on my own, and remain standing, though, Bee gave me the assist, holding most of my weight.

"Let's give Bee the news. We got a ship now. We're leaving," Crosshairs said.

That didn't bode well for me, and based on the way Bee stiffened and Jazzy'z chirp them either. I had already thought I lost them once, and now I was gonna have to go through it all again. It was bullshit. I couldn't even argue. I just buried my face and Bee's neck. He just wrapped his arms around me, holding me as tightly as he could without hurting me.

"You humans. After all we have done. You don't know what you've brought upon yourselves."

I had never heard Optimus sound so disappointed, not even in Megatron, when he told us the story of his fall from grace.

"What? What is it now? What are you talking about? I mean I'm doing stuff that's out of my league here."

I had to give Cade credit. He was handling everything extremely well.

"You don't see who's controlling who. Within that manmade prototype I fought I sensed the presence of Megatron."

"What?" I croaked.

"The decepticon that started the Chicago war?" Cade asked.

"How? He's dead. "How? He's dead."

"How do you think KSI built those bots in the first place?"

"Brains?" I asked, eyeing the small bot.

"Hm? They had a whole mess of dead decepticon heads, and they were downloading their minds. And I was in charge of autopsy duty. No union, no benefits, no nothing. They hooked me up to Megatron and that mind wasn't as dead as they thought. He fed them the science and specs all so they could build him a brand new body. Then he infected it with his evil nasty chromosomes. They had red beady eyes, got all up in my lovely locks. I can smell it right now. Total inside custom job. KSI might've named the body a snappy name like Galvatron, but that's just Megatron reincarnated."

I turned from Bee to face Brains, "And you let them? After everything, you fucking let them rebuild Megatron? Who the fuck's side are you on?" I yelled, getting more worked up by the second. "You were the only one, who had the power to stop this, to sabotage it from the fucking inside and you just let them go. What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"Little Girl, you can go to a pretty dark place, when you're on death row."

I started hacking. I could've fallen to my knees if Bee hadn't caught me.

"Megatron played KSI, and now he's going after the seed."

"The seed?" Shane questioned.

"Those nasty soldiers that were chasing us. I saw them board the ship and they took something that they called the seed."

"Listen, sixty million years ago give or take an eon-"

"Thousands of planets were cyberformed with seeds. They turned your organic life and turned them into our elemental metals. Our creators destroyed your world to make us," Optimus explained.

"And that's what Galvatron wants to happen again. He wants to detonate that seed in the biggest city and kill millions. He's gonna show the world baby I'm back."

"The blast range will incarnate that city into molten metal. He'll have enough to build a massive army and annihilate your species forever."

"You dumb greedy bastards, you just bought yourselves extinction for yourself. Not my problem though. I'm free at last. The whole thing worked out for me."

"Brains, I hope that you understand that I am going to kick the-" The hacking intensified.

Everyone just stared, which was a very weird thing to go through.

"We've got to get the Seed before Galvatron does," Cade said.

One glance at my hand revealed a mix of silver, blue and red.

"Brent," Optimus said sadly.

"No," I snapped, but couldn't stop hacking long enough to continue.

" _She's bleeding internally… Give her… One last shot…"_

"Do it," Ravage agreed.

Before I could really register what was going on, something was jammed into my side and the searing got worse. It was almost immediately followed by an intense grogginess. My systems began to switch into sleep mode.

I was knocked out. When I woke up, I was in a train. It wasn't moving, but it was definitely a change from anywhere else we'd been.

My head was on Bee's lap. He was running his fingers through my hair. He must've been at it for a while, because my hair had been a mess and he was getting through pretty smoothly.

I looked up at his optics. I felt a lot better than before. Still felt like shit though.

"You are going to be the fragging death of me," he croaked out.

"You shouldn't be talking," I told him.

"You shouldn't be nearly dying in a war that we brought here."

I shook my head. " _You_ didn't bring anything here. Your ancestors did."

He went to argue, but I raised a hand put it over his mouth. "I don't want to pick a fight over your stupid self-imposed guilt." 

He narrowed his eyes at me.

I sat up and looked myself over surveying the damage. I was still covered in cuts and bruises, which was whatever. I could make them out, which was weird. I was clean. We didn't exactly have showers and I had been covered in all kinds of dirt. I had new clothes too, which I was thankful for.

"Ravage went shopping," Bee explained.

I smelled my arm. "Baby wipes?"

He nodded.

"She thinks of everything," I said with a smile.

"That she does," he agreed.

He was quiet for a moment. "If Optimus still decides to leave, I'm not going with him. I'm not leaving you."

There was a part of me that wanted to argue, to tell him to go and have a life doing whatever the fuck they would be doing in space, but that part of being overshadowed by the part that wanted him with me forever, as long as forever would be, the part that was relieved to hear him say it.

I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. He kissed back softly, slowly, davoring the moment. Who knew how many moments like this we were gonna have?

"I love you," I whispered.

"You have my spark. Now go back to sleep, you're nowhere near recovered, even with that extrashot of nanobots."

"Where the fuck did you get those?" I asked.

"Ratchet gave them to me."

"You've been holding on to them for that long?"

"Never needed them. Sleep. No matter what they choose to do, you and I are gonna have our work cut out for us."


	6. Chapter 6

I don't own Transofmers. All copyrights and trademarks go to their respective owners.

* * *

"How are you feeling?" Ravage asked me.

"Angry," I replied.

She chuckled. "I meant physically."

"Like I got hit by a damn bus," I replied. "But, it's fine, because all the major damage is like 80% healed," I informed her. A night's rest and that extra shot of nanobots had me healed up considerably. I ran my hand across the band of silver around my neck. "Nothing that I can't run with," I told her.

"You need to learn your limits," she told me.

I shook my head. "No, I know my limits. They don't," I looked at Shane, Tessa and Cade.

We were nearing our destination. Optimus had just left Cade from whatever heart to heart they were having.

I walked over. "You three-"

They all looked at me.

"I'm asking nicely for you to not do anything stupid that I'll have to save you from."

"We don't try," Tessa argued.

"You don't make any real effort to avoid life threatening situations," I told her. "Now listen, I take most of the abuse, because I'm more durable than you, but I'm still human. I'm not as durable as them." I jerked my thumb back towards the others. "And I took a beating yesterday, so I'm even less durable today than I was yesterday."

"Brent, you have acted bravely and selflessly and performed in ways that I never would've thought possible, when I first met you," Optimus said, coming up behind me.

"Well, you know when I met you I didn't think I I was ever going to have a family let alone two that I was going to end up losing, so…"

"Brent-"

"I'm not blaming you," I told him. "I'm blaming Joyce and his CIA fuck buddy. As soon as I get the chance I'm breaking my foot off up Joyce's ass, and Mr. Cemetery Wind's dead. Dead as fuck."

"We're simply retrieving the seed."

I rolled my eyes.

"If you really thing that this is going to go off without a hitch you've lost your damn mind," I told him.

He cycled his vents.

I smirked. "You know I'm right."

"But I hope you're wrong."

"That makes two of us."

"Prime, we've found the seed," Crosshairs called.

"Looks like it's go time."

"Sensei, my searches have shown that KSI's Chinese facility has come under attack," Drift added.

"I should've bet it," I chirped.

"We must hurry and get the seed, before Galvatron does," Prime said. "Autobots, prepare for extraction."

I looked between the others with a small sarcastic smile on my face. "You three ready for the boss fight?" I asked.

"It won't come to that."

"Keep telling yourself that, Prime," I said, looking up at Big Blue.

Crosshairs pin pointed the location of the seed. Luckily for us it was on the roof of a building with Josh Joyce, so we could knock out two birds with one stone.

They opened the back.

"Joshua!"

"Hey, Baldy!" I snorted at Hound.

"Hey! It's me!"

I rolled my eyes. "No shit, asshole!" I yelled.

The ship was lowered to the roof top and we created a chain to pull him up the ramp with Bee serving as anchor.

Hound and Ravage were there to provide cover if need, which we unfortunately needed. We were hit and fell off. Optimus, Drift and Crosshairs were on the ship and hightailed it out of there to avoid crashing in such a populated area.

We ran to another roof top and surveyed the damage.

"I count ten below," Hound called.

"I thought you had one prototype get infected?" Cade asked.

"Now he's got operational control of my other fifty," Joyce responded.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to turn you into a fucking kabob."

"They've got us surrounded. We need to get that seed out of here. Bee, Kitty, with me. The rest of you get that thing down to the bottom, and we'll meet back up there."

"Don't any of you die on me!" I yelled, taking off with the others.

"Brent, can you provide cover fire?"

"I can, but I'm gonna wait until we absolutely need it. I'm still not one-hundred remember?"

"I may have started the apocalypse, but you brought your family and that's you know, terrible parenting."

"Your bed buddy Attinger killed my family," I reminded him.

"I'm about two seconds away from knocking your ass out and leaving with the bomb," Cade responded.

"Please, you'd being doing me a favor."

One of the Stinger models started firing at us.

"Brent?!" Shane yelled panicked.

"I'm not that good of a shot!" I yelled at him.

"How are you not that good of a shot?"

"There's not exactly a range, where I can shot things, but I've been running, since they showed up here, so get your ass moving!"

"You died."

"Because I ran in the wrong direction on purpose, now isn't the time to argue with me."

"You died?"

"Shut up, Joyce!"

I scanned the area. "Elevator to the right."

We made it to the elevator, and hopped in. Before the door shut, gun shots rang out. We all ducted. I deflected one shot with my servo, using the plating of my forearm as a shield.

"Where the hell can I get one of you?"

The elevator was too heavy. "I think you should go to lighten the load," I sneered, before I could throw his ass out, Cade ran off, so that he could play hero.

The elevator started it's decent.

"He's gonna be okay," Shane assured Tessa.

"Listen, if Sam managed to survive three of these fucking things, anyone can survive. He'll be fine."

"Who is Sam?"

"My idiot best friend. Maybe you'll meet him one day. At a Cybertronian war support group I need to start." I hit a button to stop our decent. "We're taking the stairs down. They'll be waiting at the ground floor."

We piled out, Joyce and Shane with the bomb.

"ALIEN BOMB! ALIEN BOMB! GET OUT OF THE WAY! GET OUT OF THE WAY! Hey kids." Josh returned to his yelling.

I was hopeful that most of these people didn't understand what the fuck he was saying. Announcing that you have an alien bomb is a sure fire way to get people in a frenzy, which was the opposite of what we needed.

A group of old ladies didn't seem to understand or they didn't care as they continued to move at a snail's pace in front of us. "We're coming through ladies! Ladies! Excuse me! Oh my god! How do you say 'get the fuck out of the way' in Chinese?"

I transformed my arm into my blaster, while translating. I charged it up and cocked it, causing it to make quite a bitch of noise, which attracted the ladies' attention. ""獲得他媽的閃開"

"Effective," Joyce commented as they parted.

"Not as effective as my foot's gonna be up your ass."

We made it the stair well and made our way down as fast as we could.

I transformed my arm back. We ran outside and a met up with Hound Ravage and Bee. Then Darcy, who was one of Joyce's people and Cade, who like I predicted hasn't died, which I assumed meant that Attinger's right hand was dead and gone. I kept that too myself though. No need to worry Tessa was the fact that her father killed a man. That probably wouldn't help any.

"We got a real dilemma here. I created incredible robots. It's all designed to kick that fat transformers ass." He pointed at Hound. "So really this is a no win situation."

Hound took his cigar and flicked it at Joyce. "That was mean."

"Hey! I'm sorry if you can't handle the cold hearted truth!" he yelled.

"Little J?"

Jazzy crawled out of my pocket onto my shoulder.

"Go ahead and do the thing," I told him.

Jazzy launched himself at Joyce, clinging to Joyce's shoulder, gun pointed right at his head.

"Joyce, it'd be a lot easier on all of us if you were dead, so if I were you, I'd quit disrespecting the people who have no reason to keep your ass alive."

"Alright. Alright. I apologize. Can you please call the little one off?"

"Thanks, Lil Lady."

I nodded at Hound.

"Jazzy."

He was hesitant, but lowered his weapons, and crawled back over to me.

"You got anything?"

"A track on all hostiles," he answered.

"Keep us updated and stay where I can't lose you."

Hound commed Prime openly. **what am I doing with these humans? Can I squish the bald guy?**

Optimus didn't answer.

 **?**

"Damn it," Hound swore.

"Plan is to not die for the moment. To do that we can't stay here."

We started moving, using Hound as cover and sending Bee up ahead to clear the path if need be. Ravage had taken up the rear.

Incoming fire caused the rest of us search for cover, while they engaged the enemy.

"Stay behind me. I'm coverin' ya. If I stop coverin' ya, it means I'm dead, but that ain't gonna happen." As soon as the last syllable left his vocal processor a rocket whizzed past his head. He spun around and shot the source of it. "Take that! I'm a wicked warrior robot."

Despite everything going on. I still found Hound funny. That was probably a sign that I was losing it, but who was I kidding I had probably lost it a long time ago.

"Let's go!"

Somehow, our best option was to hide in a building with glass walls, which as Joyce pointed out was stupid.

Jazzy was updating me on the locations of the enemies. We were surrounded and they were closing in.

I retracted my pretender skin and transformed my arm into my blaster.

"Cade, we're shooting."

"I thought you were a bad shot," Joyce commented.

"As long as I don't hit, Bee, Hound or Rav, it's fine."

We only got a couple of shots off, before a stray projectile blew up the spot directly in front of us.

Joyce made some weird noise. "I can't believe that I'm putting my life in your hands."

I snarled, transforming my blaster into my blades. I held them up to his throat. "Either you shut the fuck up and deal with the fact that your life is in our hands, or it ends at mine."

He swallowed nervously, putting his hands up. "I'm sure your hands are perfectly capacble."

I was happy that he bought my bluff. "Then shut up!" I transformed it back and returned to my shooting.

Hound would knock them close to us and Cade and I would take the kill shots. Ravage had switched from shooting to close combat, ripping the knockoffs into pieces. At one point Hound referred to himself as a fat ballerina, who takes scalps and slits throats which was something. I wasn't sure what to make of that.

A grenade fell off of Hound. He order us to pull the pin and then hurled it at a few, but there were just too man and hound ran out of ammo. The three of them were overwhelmed.

Then there was a deep rumbling. Which I assumed was going to be a very terrible thing.

"Cade, you know how in _Jurassic Park_ , you can hear the t-rex coming?"

"Yeah?"

"Prepare for the t-rex."

I was not however expecting an actual, giant, robotic t-rex with a very angry Optimus riding it.

Just when I thought that I had seen it all.

"Optimus is here!" Hound called.

All I could do was stare for a moment.

Optimus' arrival reinvigorated, Ravage and Hound, who were now fighting much harder and Bee was fighting Stinger on what looked to be a two headed pterodactyl. There had been a lot of times, where I questioned how I had gotten where I was in the situation that I was in, but this was really the first time that I questioned what the fuck my life had turned into.

Then it hit me. "Why the fuck is Bee on the thing that flies?!" I yelled.

Eventually, they managed to clear out a majority of cons and send the others running.

"You," Optimus pointed at Joyce with his sword.

"What? Me?" I shoved him forward.

"Your science will be responsible for humanity's extinction."

"Look, I know that you're sensitive to this whole bioethical dilemma-"

"Maybe all he wants to hear you say is that somethings should never be invented. The t-rex screamed in his face.

"How in the hell did you not just piss yourself?" I asked him.

"We'll lead yo out of the city. Get that seed safely to the hills."

"Use this car."

Cade got in the driver's seat. Joyce, Tessa and Darcy sat in the back with the seed. I hopped in the hatch.

"Get out of that seat," Shane said, "And you're one lucky dad to have me."

I smirked.

"Okay Lucky Charms. You got that. You drive. Let's go."

"You're time to shine, Lucky Charms!" I called.

I had been part of a couple of autobot convoys before, but none of them had ever included dinosaurs.

I almost felt relieved when we started rolling out. Almost. The seed started beeping. Beeping was never a good sign.

"The fuck is that?"

"I don't know. I- I don't know, but it's an issue."

"Did you press a button?" Cade asked.

"Is it going to blow up?" Darcy with a better question.

"The thing is beeping now, so you must've hit something," Cade continued.

"Is it going to blow up?" Darcy asked again.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Joyce exploded.

"J?"

Jazzy hopped onto the bomb and examined it. "It's a tracker."

"A tracker?"

We all paused in confusion. Then it hit me. "Lockdown!"

It was like I had summoned the ship. We were so caught up in the bomb that we hadn't noticed it up ahead until it started dropping shit in front of us.

Shane shifted into reverse. The bots ran tossing and debris that could've hit us away. "Autobots! Roll back!"

"It's a big magnet!" Joyce yelled.

"It's ducking up metal and dropping it."

I could feel it pulling me. Shane drove us into a building.

It was right over us.

"Everyone piled out of the car, which didn't help me any as I began to float upwards.

I also had the seed, which didn't do anything to help me. Cade grabbed my leg, Tessa and Darcy holding on to his, but that wasn't enough. I let out a pained screech as I felt the metal pull against the soft tissues of my body. Shane couldn't get out of the car though, and was floating higher than me. He flopped onto the roof, and then the pull stopped.

"Move!" I barked as the car came crashing down. We managed to find Bee, which was a massive relief.

" _Hey you guys! Yeehaw!_ "

I rolled my eyes. Of course he was having a blast, while I was having my skeleton ripped from my body. "Glad you're enjoying yourself. I'm being turned into a chicken tender, and you're playing fucking _Top Gun_."

" _You sound like… Sam…_ "

"Oh fuck you! See if I ever wash you again."

"Come on… Doll Face…"

"Don't Doll Face me, Bug."

He joined the rest of the bots. We met back up with Optimus. "Autobots, get this bomb over the bridge and out of the city," he ordered. But then that fucking magnet kicked in and picked us up again. I ended up on the underside of a sky bridge. Again the hard and soft parts of my body fought against each peach other, pushing and shoving.

Optimus got sucked up around the sky bridge and shot at the magnet, disabling it, sending me falling towards the ground.

I screamed bloody murder. Before, I could go splat, Bee swooped in on the pterodactyl and caught me.

" _I got you babe…_ " he played cradling me in the area in front of his spark.

I caught my breath. He hopped off and set me down, before transforming to go with the others. I hopped in the back. I was only vaguely paying attention to what Cade was saying, but based on the fact that he bolted towards Optimus, I had a pretty good idea.

Tessa was completely and totally freaked. And we didn't get very far, before she made Bee stop.

By the point I had gained a bit of my composure back.

" _Now listen…_ "

"No you listen. I'm not leaving my dad," Tessa said.

Bee remained silent.

"Jazzy wouldn't leave you," I told him.

He cycled his vents.

" _Jazzy… wouldn't leave… you…_ " he responded, heading back.

I laughed. "Well I would tell him not to leave you."

" _Real nice…_ "

"I'd tell him to leave us."

When we found the pair, Optimus had his own sword through his chest and Cade had a gun pointed at his.

"I got Cade," I said, hoping out.

I blasted the gun out of his hand.

He pulled his now burnt hand to his chest and glared at me. "The techno-organic," he sneered.

"The shitty human," I shot back.

Cade grabbed the gun and aimed it at Attinger.

"Go help the others," I told him.

"Are you-"

"Go!" I barked.

"You've allowed yourself to be brainwashed. You're disillusioned calling them your family, thinking that they can love, that they can love you."

"That's rich coming from you. Disillusioned is thinking that you understand what the fuck is going here. You told me I had no idea what I was involved with. You're right. We have fucking dinosaurs now. I have no clue what the fuck I'm in anymore. I never really did, but neither did you. The difference between us isn't what we don't know. It's in what we do know. I know that those bots have given everything up to defend us. I know that those bots-"

"You know what they programmed into you," he shot. "They turned you into this thing." Disgust laced his words.

"They had nothing to do with this."

"It was an act of illegal experimentation."

"This was an act of a god," I spat.

That seemed to enrage him enough that he pulled out another gun and shot me. Unfortunately for him he went for the forehead, which while uncomfortable was nowhere near lethal. The bullet broke the skin, but deflected off my skull.

"Son of a bitch!" I knocked the gun out of his hand dodging the second shot he got off. He started swinging. He had the technical advantage, being a trained CIA operative, while I was just a girl from the suburbs, but I was extremely good at not getting hit. The longer he went the sloppier and more desperate he got until he launched himself at me. It caused us both to fall to the ground. I took the brunt of the impact, but used the moment to roll us both through, so that he was one on the ground. I pinned him down, my artificial strength, too much for him.

"Listen here you fucker. If I had my way, I would send you back out into the world, just so you could live in fear of being hunted down. Then when I found you again, I would tear you apart limb from fucking limb and then burn what was left of you alive, just like you did my family!" I cried.

"They're machines," he argued.

"They are people," I spat back, cocking back and punching him. "They fought to save you, to save us and you repaid them by murdering them in cold blood!"

"I did what I had to, to save-"

I punched him again.

"If I were you, Attinger. I would thank my lucky stars that it was me that took you down and not one of the bots," I said.

"And why is that, because otherwise they would turn me into some-"

I chuckled. It was a dry humorless sound. "Because I'm the only one who faints at the sight of blood," I said, snapping his neck.

I stood up and watched as Prime, jammed his sword into Lockdown's chest and lifted upwards, slicing him in half, saving Cade.

"Where's Bee?" I asked, frantically searching for him. He was laid out on the ground. I ran over and carefully climbed up on his chassis.

"Bug? Bug?!" I called, looking down at his helm.

" _I am in sooooo much trouble…_ " he played, before groaning.

I let out a relieved laugh, bringing my forehead down to his plating.

He cupped a servo around me and sat up.

While Lockdown may have been gone, that didn't mean the newly reformed cons were. We were fired upon again.

"Get out of here!" Optimus yelled.

Be transformed, throwing me in the driver's seat and tore out of there as fast as he could, dodging the enemy.

I looked back a few minutes later and saw Optimus fly off and then an explosion.

We arrived at the location where the others were at the same time as Optimus.

Cade and Tessa were locked in an embrace. Bee let me out and Jazzy crawled up onto my shoulder. Bee activated his holoform. He held my face in his hands and I thought he was gonna kiss me, but instead, he began examining the silver mark on my forehead, a look of concern on his features.

I didn't answer any of his silent questions, opting instead to pull him down to my level and kiss him, before resting my head on his chest. Bee wrapped hi arms around me, while Jazzy crawled over on to his shoulder.

"We don't have a home, Dad," Tessa said, drawing my attention towards them "It blew up."

"I might be able to help you with that," Joyce said. "And you two-" he looked at Bee and I. "I think I can help with your wedding too."

"Oh you're helping with a lot of shit mother fucker," I told him. Partially, because Jazzy had gone ahead and transferred a large sum of money from KSI into a Swiss bank account for me, and partially, because I was holding him responsible for this madness. "I want it outside in the middle of nowhere so that the bots can be there."

"I'll buy the property."

"I want my friends and family there. They all know, so there's no worries there."

"I'll fly them all to whatever location you choose."

"I don't know where a lot of them ended up."

"We'll find them. Anything else?"

"I want a god damn Pnina Tornai."

"You actually have good taste."

Everyone chuckled.

"Obviously," I said, patting Bee's chest.

"Brave warriors, you are free."

The dinobots roared and transformed in response to Optimus' declaration.

"I'll ride with you any time, Spike," Crosshairs told the one as they ran off.

"Should we really let them run off like this?" I asked. No one said anything. "Like really has no one here ever seen _Jurassic Park_?"

Bee pulled his altmode up behind us, dropping back pulling Jazzy and I down, before fizzling out and transforming. I ended up on one shoulder, Jazzy on the other.

Optimus spoke. "This Seed belongs to out creators, whoever they are. There remains a price on my head. I endanger you all if I stay. I shall take it, where it will never be found."

Cade asked the question on all of our minds. "Will we ever see you again?"

"Cade Yeager, I do not know, but whenever you look to the stars think of one of them as my soul. Defend this family, Autobots, as they have you. Defend all they can be."

Optimus had died once. I thought he had died another time. Most recently I didn't know if he was dead or not, but none of those had ever hurt as much as losing him right now was. Tears silently trailed down my face. This was Optimus, the best of us. He was what we aspired to be like. He was the glue that held us together, when we were falling apart, and he was leaving.

He took flight and we watched him get smaller and smaller until he disappeared into the sky.

But this was Optimus. He died once, but Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Simmons, Mudflap, Skidz, Jetfire, Wheelie, Jazzy, Bee and I brought him back. I thought he died another time, but it was just a ruse. Most recently I didn't know if he was alive or not, and brought our family together and led us against the predators hunting us down.

This was Optimus. He always came back.


End file.
